Scouring hours of CCTV footage and sifting through hundreds of responses to police appeals, the team managed to identify Bellfield and arrest him three months later.

Bellfield was convicted of the murder of Amélie Delagrange, as well as that of Marsha McDonnell in 2003, and schoolgirl Milly Dowler in 2002. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy. He is currently serving three life sentences in prison.

Writer Ed Whitmore, who also wrote Silent Witness and Rillington Place, was keen to tell the story as accurately as possible, collaborating extensively with DCI Sutton himself and basing the Manhunt script on the detailed memoirs of the detective.

Martin Clunes as DCI Colin Sutton

Clunes prepared for the role of Sutton by spending time with a major incident team at Hampshire Police.

He also met Colin Sutton, commenting after that "it was hugely helpful for playing him".

"Hearing Colin’s stories about his former colleagues and his respect for people, just putting that into place when you see a real group of detectives was massively helpful," he added.

Picking up his London accent and unique mannerisms, DCI Sutton told the Radio Times that even his wife had commented on the accuracy of Clunes' portrayal.

"It wasn’t an impersonation of me," he said. "But I think Martin is very talented and he brought a lot to it and he picked up some of my mannerisms."

The writer, Ed Whitmore, stayed at DCI Sutton's home for four days in the initial stages of writing the script to make sure the character accurately reflected the real detective, with the now retired detective offering regular amendments to make the story more realistic.

Amélie's parents

The real Delagranges (top) and their portrayal in the TV show Manhunt (Image: Roger Allen/Daily Mirror/ITV)

In the first episode, Sutton visits Amélie's parents, Jean-François and Dominique Delagrange, after they travel to London. In the scene, they thank him for putting them up in such a nice hotel, to which he replies: "It's the least we could do."

Sutton then asks them if they would like to visit the place where Amélie died.

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The couple, played by Stephane Conicard and Michèle Belgrand, begin to cry and tightly hold hands, nodding their heads.

Although we will never know what happened during the private conversations in their hotel room, the Delagranges did in fact visit the site of Amélie's death soon after she was found in August 2004, laying flowers at the spot.

The Delagranges and their portrayal in the TV show Manhunt (Image: Jason Shillingford/ Mirror/ ITV)

Although they are shown in Manhunt going there alone, the real Delagranges were pictured with Amélie's sister, Virginie, and her uncle, on Twickenham Green in 2004.

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They did, however, use DCI Sutton's real A-Z map, which could be seen in episode two as DCI Sutton and DS Jo Brunt (Katie Lyon) visit Levi Bellfield's old flat in Collingwood Place, Walton-on-Thames.

Locating on the map the place where Bellfield used to live, Clunes turns to Lyon (playing DS Brunt) and says: "Oh Jesus. Milly went missing on Station Avenue. That is literally one street away."

The victims

The picture used in Manhunt (left) and the real Amelie (Image: Metropolitan Police/Getty Images, Buffalo Pictures for ITV)

The drama begins with the murder of French student Amélie Delagrangeon Twickenham Green after she had been out with friends and missed her bus stop.

In episode one, DCI Sutton quickly makes a link between the murder of Miss Delagrange and Marsha McDonnell, who was murdered the year before near her home in Hampton.

Whilst the names of the two women were kept the same, the picture pinned to the notice board in the police station is not that of Amélie, but an actress.

Kate Sheedy, who was run over by Bellfield in 2004 (Image: Central News)

In episode two, DCI Sutton references the case of a woman he refers to as Sarah Knight, telling his colleagues that she was intentionally run over by a white people carrier and left for dead in Isleworth.

Whilst the incident described was based on actual events, the name of the victim was changed for the show. The case DCI Sutton (Clunes) is referring to is that of Kate Sheedy, who was run over by Bellfield in 2004 after she got off a bus near her home in Isleworth.

Bellfield's flat in Collingwood Place

In episode two, DCI Sutton and DS Brunt are seen driving to Bellfield's old address in Walton-on-Thames after realising he lived only a stone's throw away from where schoolgirl Milly Dowler disappeared in 2002.

The producers of Manhunt experienced a backlash from locals when they chose to use the real location that Milly went missing, accidentally scheduling the scene to be filmed on the 16th anniversary of her disappearance.

In the scene filmed outside the flat, DCI Sutton tells DC Brunt that Bellfield had lived there with his partner Laura Marsh.

He removed the sheets from the bed, claiming the dog had had an accident on them, and later that day enlisted the help of a friend to remove the mattress from the flat, burning it along with the bedding.

Getting out of the car, DCI Sutton (Clunes) and DS Brunt (Lyon) then walk from the flat, out of the residential estate, and onto Station Road to the bus stop where Milly was last seen, counting only 55 seconds from one spot to the other.

The CCTV

The show sees DCI Sutton make CCTV footage a priority for the investigation, to the disapproval of some of his team.

In episode one, DC Neil Jones (played by Steffan Rhodri) shows Sutton some footage he has found of Amélie talking to a bus driver the night she went missing.

"She missed her stop, she's asking how often the buses went," he explains.

Watching her get off the bus and head back in the opposite direction, Sutton replies: "She walked back, that's why she had to go across the green. She missed her bloody stop."

Amélie Delagrange did in fact miss her stop the night she was killed. She was seen boarding the 267 bus outside the Old Post Sorting House, a Wetherspoons pub in Twickenham, at just after 9.30pm.

Real CCTV of Amélie boarding a bus in Twickenham

She got off the bus at Fulwell Bus Garage, one stop after her usual one, and walked back towards her house in Twickenham.

In real life, the absence of forensic evidence meant DCI Sutton did in fact rely heavily on hours of CCTV footage to catch Bellfield.

DCI Sutton said he approached the case using old-fashioned police work to solve what he described as "the sort of case that could have happened in the 1950s."

In the final scenes of the first episode, DCI Jones shows Sutton a composition he has made from four different external bus cameras, spotting a white Ford Courier parked next to Twickenham Green at the time Amélie would have been attacked.

Eventually narrowing down their search from 26,000 registered vans of the same model, the car proved to be a crucial clue in identifying and tracking Levi Bellfield in the real investigation.

After watching the first episode, DCI Sutton told The Radio Times: "Seeing the CCTV room recreated was like going back 14 years."

The ex-girlfriend

In episode two, DCI Sutton is reminded of a testimony given by Jo Collings, who came forward after Amélie was found, to tell police she suspected her ex-boyfriend had carried out the attack.

Martin Clunes, as DCI Sutton, reads out her testimony: "My ex, Levi Bellfield, is familiar with the area and hates women, especially blonde women. I once found a copy of Cosmopolitan with all the blondes' faces scratched out.

"Levi used to keep a knife and a balaclava in a hidden pocket in his coat."

Jo Collings is the real name of Levi Bellfield's ex-girlfriend, who dated the killer for three or four years and had two children with him after they met in the mid-nineties at Rocky's nightclub in Cobham, where he worked as a doorman.

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Miss Collings later told the media how she had once discovered a bin liner in their garage with a balaclava, jacket and a kitchen knife inside, along with a magazine with the faces of blonde models scratched out.

She described how she had been raped by Bellfield, who used her as "target practice" for his night-time attacks.

The pair broke up in 1997 after he beat her up whilst she was pregnant with their second child.

She came forward after a police appeal for information about the driver of a white people carrier that had intentionally mowed down Kate Sheedy in Isleworth in 2004.

The bridge

The real Walton Bridge (top) and the bridge seen in Manhunt (Image: Darren Pepe, TMS /Buffalo Pictures for ITV)

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In the show, divers find her phone, house keys, purse and CD player in the water, offering details about the whereabouts of her attacker the night she was killed.

Divers did in fact find Amélie's belongings in the water at Walton Bridge. However, the bridge that currently carries the A244 over the Thames in Walton was only built in 2013, and is a modern, white, installation.

The bridge seen in the episode is older and made of stone. Twitter users argued over the real identity of the bridge seen in the episode, with suggestions including Staines, Chertsey and Kew Bridge.

The café and bar

The restaurant seen in Manhunt (Image: Buffalo Pictures for ITV)

In the very first scene of episode one, Amélie is seen chatting to friends in Le Petit Bistro on the night she was found in Twickenham Green.

In reality, Amélie had been out with French friends at Crystals wine bar in Twickenham.

She had called Olivier Lenfant, her boyfriend, to invite him to join her and her friends, but he had declined because he was busy moving house.

The bakery seen in Manhunt (Image: Buffalo Pictures for ITV)

Later on in the episode, DC Brunt is seen going into a bakery called Konditor and Cook to speak to an old friend and colleague of Amélie's.

Amélie did work in a bakery in real life, but it was not Konditor and Cook, which is based next to Waterloo Station in central London.

The real Amélie had a job at Mont Blanc, in Richmond, where she met her French boyfriend and colleague, Olivier.

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